Strategies of Deconstruction

Derrida and the Myth of the Voice

1991
Author:

J. Claude Evans

The first detailed critical study of Derrida’s interpretation and critique of Husserl.

The first detailed critical study of Derrida’s interpretation and critique of Husserl.

“This is the best book critical of Derrida that I have read. It is a most serious challenge to one of Derrida’s most persuasive efforts. As Evans explains in the introduction to his book, Derrida’s most serious attempt at establishing the central ideas of his approach to metaphysics is his critique of Husserl. This book consists largely of a careful examination of that critique. The rest of the book examines arguments in Of Grammatology accusing Aristotle and Saussure of unreasonably favoring speech over language.” Samuel C. Wheeler III, University of Connecticut

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 53, No. 4. (Dec., 1993), pp. 966-9

In the past two decades, the “movement” of deconstruction has bad tremendous impact on a number of academic, disciplines in the United States. However, its force has been rather limited in the field of philosophy, despite the fact that in Europe the practice of deconstruction emerged in the work of philosophers. Although the reasons for this can be debated, two of the more obvious explanations are the mainstream Anglo-American philosophers rarely studied the German and French philosophical traditions in great detail, and deconstruction’s focus on discourse and interpretation has made it more attractive to the literary and humanistic disciplines.

With this context, Strategies of Deconstruction focuses on the early work of Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher who introduced deconstruction in Speech and Phenomena, his study of Edmund Husserl, and Of Grammatology, and whose philosophical reputation stems in no small part from his work on Husserl. In examining the philosophical import of Derrida’s theories of reading, text, and language, specifically as they related to Speech and Phenomena, J. Claude Evans makes careful reference to Husserl’s own texts. His analysis indicates that there are many systematic irregularities in Derrida’s study and that without those irregularities Dirrida’s conclusions cannot be substantiated.

Evans is currently working in the field of environmental ethics. He recently completed a book called Life Lives From Life: The Environmental Ethics of Participation in Nature. Evans currently works at the University of Washington in St. Louis.

“This is the best book critical of Derrida that I have read. It is a most serious challenge to one of Derrida’s most persuasive efforts. As Evans explains in the introduction to his book, Derrida’s most serious attempt at establishing the central ideas of his approach to metaphysics is his critique of Husserl. This book consists largely of a careful examination of that critique. The rest of the book examines arguments in Of Grammatology accusing Aristotle and Saussure of unreasonably favoring speech over language.” Samuel C. Wheeler III, University of Connecticut

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 53, No. 4. (Dec., 1993), pp. 966-9